Refill problem with Percocet. Please advise.

I was diagnosed about two months ago with a ruptured disc in my cervical spine pressing on my spinal cord. It is causing severe pain in my neck, right shoulder, arm and hand.

Initially I was prescribed 10 mg Vicodin. It helped a little, but not much and after a few weeks there was virtually no reason to keep taking it.

The doctor then prescribed 10 mg Percocet. I had the precription for 90 filled on 9/28. I have been taking 5-6 of them per day (every 4 hours) and ran out starting running low. The doctor wrote me another prescription on 10/14. I went to the pharmacy and the pharmacist said my insurance wouldn't cover it until 10/16. I told her I needed the medication and offered to pay for it. She refused citing that it was a controlled substance.

Can someone please explain what the law is regarding this? If I took the initial 90 as directed and my doctor wrote another prescription, am I not at least allowed to pay for it even if my insurance won't?

You need to get your doctor to phone the pharmacy and ok the prescription.When he wrote the presc for 90 he put on it that you take so many a day.That locks the 90 ills into a specfic time frame.If you come in early the law says they can't fill it unless the doctor overrides it.....Good luck and be carefull, percocet is very addicting......Dave

mpvt is correct, controlled substances are dispensed on a certain time frame, and to prevent abuse, pharmacies will not fill them early, and by law, are not allowed to, except in certain extenuating cicumstances, which must be verified by a physician.

6 a day (every 4 hours), from 90 pills is 15 days, which means you should have been able to get a refill already, as of the 13th or 14th, however if they log the prescription as every 5 hours, or more, between pills, then that is 18 days, which explains why you were early according to your pharmacy.

If you doc is writing the scrip as take one tablet, every 4 to 5 hours, or every 4 to 6 hours as needed for pain, then you need to ask him/her to be more specific as to how often you can take them, that way you can avoid this problem in the future.

My information is not guaranteed correct. I do not get them right all the time, but I do enjoy the hunt~

You need to get your doctor to phone the pharmacy and ok the prescription.When he wrote the presc for 90 he put on it that you take so many a day.That locks the 90 ills into a specfic time frame.If you come in early the law says they can't fill it unless the doctor overrides it.....Good luck and be carefull, percocet is very addicting......Dave

Thanks Dave. I am very concerned about becoming addicted, but am unsure what else to do at this point. This medication is the only thing that has helped me enough to be able to continue working. I'm having surgery in mid-December and I can't afford to lose my job over this whole ordeal.

Another concern I have is after taking Percocet for three months, what sort of pain medicine will work for me post-op? I'm hoping I won't need pain medicine for more than a few weeks after. I am very open to the possibility that I may need "help" to stop taking pain meds after I heal from surgery. Hopefully that won't be the case, but if it is I have to deal with it.

I used to take the extra (early) prescription to another drug store and tell them I didn't have insurance and I paid for the whole thing myself. So I would have one running on insurance, and one running on no insurance about a week apart from each other. So if you try to refill at another drug store with the prescription plan, as soon as the pharmacist looks it up it'll show you have the drug filled on such a date and it's too early. That's why I told you to just say you don't have insurance.

Even though you can get the doctor to OK it, your insurance will not pick it up. When this happened, I would submit it to the prescrition plan at the end of the year--as long as it was close to your regular refill time. My doctor explained that prescription coverage only allows for 4 pills a day--even if he wrote it for "every 4 hours as needed" meaning 6 daily. That part sucks because your body gets used to the medicine and you need more to reduce the pain. I was never quite clear about the regulation on controlled subtances.

It's really difficult for those that are in constant pain and need more pills than the law allows!

Mind you that when I started doing this (bouncing drugstores), my addiction was getting pretty bad. Be careful!

Jason, after your post-op pain lessens, you're gonna have to wean off the pills. If you stop taking them altogether, you're gonna feel miserable. So if you're taking 6 a day, take 4 a day for a week, 3 a day for a week and so on. Something like that. Most people say those last 1 or 2 a day are the hardest to quit. Good luck!

I was diagnosed about two months ago with a ruptured disc in my cervical spine pressing on my spinal cord. It is causing severe pain in my neck, right shoulder, arm and hand.

Initially I was prescribed 10 mg Vicodin. It helped a little, but not much and after a few weeks there was virtually no reason to keep taking it.

The doctor then prescribed 10 mg Percocet. I had the precription for 90 filled on 9/28. I have been taking 5-6 of them per day (every 4 hours) and ran out starting running low. The doctor wrote me another prescription on 10/14. I went to the pharmacy and the pharmacist said my insurance wouldn't cover it until 10/16. I told her I needed the medication and offered to pay for it. She refused citing that it was a controlled substance.

Can someone please explain what the law is regarding this? If I took the initial 90 as directed and my doctor wrote another prescription, am I not at least allowed to pay for it even if my insurance won't?

You were not taking them as prescribed i can tell you that because normal dosage would be 1-2 tabs every 4-6 hours